Background: Guidelines for the successful implementation of two-way dual language bilingual education (DLBE) programs foreground the role of program leadership, hiring and preparing culturally and linguistically competent teachers, family involvement, and the alignment between curriculum, assessments, and instruction in both languages. Absent in…

The rising demand for dual-language immersion (DLI) programs, which offer core instruction in two languages from early grades onward, has raised questions about program design and access. We leverage the rapid expansion of DLI schools across the U.S. state of Utah to estimate effects of DLI program availability on the academic achievement of…

We investigated spelling errors in English and Spanish essays by Spanish-English dual language learners in Grades 1, 2, and 3 (N = 278; 51% female) enrolled in either English immersion or English-Spanish dual immersion programs. We examined what types of spelling errors students made, whether they made spelling errors that could be due to…

Purpose: This longitudinal study investigated the trajectory of Spanish article accuracy in Spanish-English dual language learners (DLLs) from preschool to first grade, addressing the need for longitudinal data on the variability of Spanish grammatical skills in DLLs in English immersion classrooms. Method: Language sample analysis was conducted…

Purpose: There is limited research on the writing of young Spanish-English bilinguals and their writing in both languages. In the current study, we addressed whether written syntax features differed by language (English and Spanish) and varied as a function of grade level, English learner status, and instructional program (dual or English…

Purpose: There is limited research on the writing of young Spanish-English bilinguals and their writing in both languages. In the current study, we addressed whether written syntax features differed by language (English and Spanish) and varied as a function of grade level, English learner status, and instructional program (dual or English…

We investigated spelling errors in English and Spanish essays by Spanish-English dual language learners in Grades 1, 2, and 3 (N = 278; 51% female) enrolled in either English immersion or English-Spanish dual immersion programs. We examined what types of spelling errors students made, whether they made spelling errors that could be due to…

This study evaluates the extent to which syntactic awareness contributes to reading comprehension in English-French bilinguals, considering both the potential for a direct relation, as well as an indirect one, through word reading. Participants were 146 first-grade students enrolled in early French immersion programs in Canada. While the children…

We examined spelling errors patterns, cohesive ties, and syntax features in English and Spanish essays written by Spanish-English emergent bilinguals in Grades 1, 2, and 3 (N = 278; 51% female) enrolled in either English immersion or English-Spanish dual immersion programs. In Study 1, we addressed whether students made consistent spelling errors…

This study explored the development of oral narrative retell proficiency among Mandarin Chinese-English dual language immersion (DLI) learners in Utah. The study compared the younger and the older DLI learners' oral narrative retelling production in order to provide information regarding the Mandarin narrative developmental trend of the DLI…

It is well-documented that there is a strong relationship between vocabulary and reading comprehension in school-age children. Limited vocabulary knowledge can impact a student's reading achievement, as may be the case for school-age English Learners (ELs). This study aims to analyze the role of vocabulary in predicting reading comprehension…

Models of reading development point to a role for knowledge about the orthography quite late in children's reading development; here we explore the contributions of early orthographic knowledge -- of the features of print -- to word reading development between kindergarten and Grade 1. We did so in a longitudinal study of 93 emergent bilingual…

The rapid growth of Mandarin Chinese and English dual-language (DL) programs and the differences between these two languages have fostered the need to investigate the early literacy performance of young students in a Mandarin/English DL program. This study used the interactive transfer framework (Chung et al., 2019) to understand the Mandarin and…

This study investigates the within- and cross-language relations between orthographic processing and spelling for children learning to read in languages that share the same Roman script: namely, English and French. We examined these relations in a group of 152 children attending grade 1 in a French immersion program. Measures of English and French…

The present study examined the effect of children's enrollment in U.S. dual-language immersion (DLI) programs in first grade on English development across five years, using the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2011 (ECLS-K:2011) database. Propensity score matching was used to create comparable groups of DLI and non-DLI…